The library floor is cold and hard and I'm sitting with my back against the biography section, knees pulled up, phone in my hand, trying not to think about all the ways this could be about me.

  Twenty-three people. I count them twice to make sure. Twenty-one students, the librarian - Mrs. Doyle, I think, I've never actually talked to her - and one kid who I'm pretty sure is a freshman who wandered in right before the alarm went off and now looks like he's about to cry. We're all arranged along the back wall, away from the windows, the lights off, the only illumination coming from phone screens held low and the emergency exit sign glowing red above the door.

  Shelter in place. This is not a drill.

  The alarm stopped cycling five minutes ago, replaced by silence that's somehow worse. I can hear sirens outside - multiple vehicles, which means they're taking this seriously. Bomb squad, probably. There's no way this can happen fast, right? If this really is a bomb threat. You have to... what, sweep the whole building, room by room, check every locker and bathroom stall and supply closet? We're going to be here for a while.

  I should be using this time productively. Reviewing the maps in my head, planning routes, thinking through contingencies. Instead I'm sitting here staring at the same three text messages and trying to convince myself that a bomb threat at my school on the same week I started operating as Megalodon is a coincidence.

  Maggie: wtf is happening at your school

  Tasha: news says bomb threat

  Lily: are you ok???

  I texted back I'm fine. Library. Will update. and then put the phone down because I didn't know what else to say. I don't know if I'm fine. I don't know if this is about me. I don't know anything except that I'm sitting on a carpeted floor in the dark with twenty-two strangers and I can't do a single thing about any of it.

  "This is such bullshit," someone mutters. A guy, somewhere to my left. I don't turn to look.

  "Shh," Mrs. Doyle says, but it's halfhearted. We've been quiet for fifteen minutes and nothing's happened. The tension is starting to curdle into boredom and restlessness, which is probably a good sign - if anyone actually thought there was a real bomb, they'd be a lot more scared.

  "I'm just saying." The guy again. "It's probably some asshole who didn't want to take the calc test."

  "There's a calc test today?"

  "Fourth period. Ramirez's class."

  "Shit, I didn't study for that."

  "Well, good news, you've got time now."

  Nervous laughter ripples through the group. Someone pulls out their binder and starts reading it with their phone flashlight. I don't join in. I'm watching the door, watching the windows, watching the shadows for any sign of movement. My body is in threat-assessment mode even though my brain knows there's nothing to assess. We're in a locked room in a locked building with cops outside. This is probably the safest I've been all week.

  It doesn't feel safe. It feels like a cage.

  "Hey." A voice closer to me, quieter. I turn. It's a girl I vaguely recognize - Black, natural hair pulled back, glasses, one of those faces I've seen in the hallways a hundred times without ever learning a name to attach to it. She's sitting about three feet away, hugging her knees the same way I am. "You're Sam, right? Sam Small?"

  I tense before I can stop myself. "Yeah."

  "I'm Destiny. Destiny Carter." She says it like she's not sure I'll care, which is fair, because I've never given her any reason to think I would. "We had bio together sophomore year. You probably don't remember."

  I don't remember. I don't remember most of sophomore year; it's a blur of Bloodhound missions and sleep deprivation and trying not to fail my classes while also trying not to get killed. "Sorry," I say. "That year was... a lot."

  "Yeah, I heard." She's looking at me with something that might be curiosity, might be sympathy, might be the same wariness everyone at this school has when they talk to me. The delinquent. The girl who got beat up at Homecoming. The girl whose house got destroyed by a dinosaur. The girl who flipped a security guard and got told one more incident means expulsion. "You doing okay? You seem kind of..."

  "Kind of what?"

  "I don't know. Tense."

  I almost laugh. Tense. Yeah. That's one word for it.

  "I don't love being stuck in small spaces," I say, which is true enough. "Especially when I don't know what's happening."

  "Same." Destiny shifts, pulls her phone out, checks it, puts it back. "My mom's freaking out. She keeps texting me asking if I'm okay and I keep telling her yes but I don't think she believes me."

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  "Parents do that."

  "Yeah." A pause. "Your parents know you're okay?"

  I check my phone. No messages from Mom or Dad, which either means they haven't heard yet or they trust me to handle myself. Probably the former. "I should probably text them."

  I type out a quick message - School's on lockdown, bomb threat probably, I'm fine, don't worry - and send it to the family group chat. Then I put the phone down and go back to staring at the door.

  "You really are tense," Destiny says. "Like, really tense. You look like you're about to fight someone."

  "Force of habit."

  "From what?"

  I don't answer. I don't know how to explain that my body has been in fight-or-flight mode for three years and I don't remember how to turn it off. I don't know how to explain that every time I'm in a room with one exit and no visibility on what's outside, some part of my brain starts calculating threat vectors and escape routes and how many people I'd have to go through to get to the door.

  I don't know how to explain that I'm pretty sure this bomb threat is my fault.

  "Sorry," Destiny says after a moment. "I didn't mean to pry."

  "It's fine."

  "You just seem like you've got a lot going on."

  "Yeah." I manage something that's almost a smile. "You could say that."

  The silence stretches. Around us, other conversations are starting up - low murmurs, people showing each other things on their phones, the freshman who looked like he was going to cry now talking quietly with a girl who might be his friend or might just be the kind of person who notices when someone's scared and does something about it. The tension is bleeding out of the room, replaced by the particular boredom of waiting for something to happen that probably won't.

  I should relax. I should let myself be bored like everyone else.

  I can't.

  "So what's your deal?" Destiny asks, apparently deciding that my non-answers are an invitation to keep talking. "Like, I've heard all the rumors, but I don't know what's actually true. Did you really flip a security guard?"

  "He was being racist."

  "That's kind of badass."

  "That's kind of what almost got me expelled."

  "Right. Heckerman." She makes a face. "He's such a--" She stops herself, glances toward Mrs. Doyle, lowers her voice. "He's not great."

  "He's better than you'd think," I give the most minimal explanation possible. "I can't imagine it's easy being a principal these days."

  She stares at me funny for a second. "Yeah." Destiny shrugs. "My brother got suspended once because he was fighting someone. But, like, the other guy totally started it, but Darnell was like, 'it's not worth it, I just want to graduate and get out.' He's at Temple now. Pre-law."

  "Good for him."

  "Yeah. He's gonna be one of the good ones, I think. A lawyer who actually gives a shit." She pauses. "What about you? What are you doing after graduation?"

  The question catches me off guard. I don't think about after graduation. I barely think about next week. My life has been lived in such short increments for so long - mission to mission, crisis to crisis - that the idea of planning for a future feels almost absurd. What am I doing after graduation? Probably the same thing I'm doing now. Fighting. Surviving. Trying to keep people alive.

  "I don't know," I say. "I haven't really figured that out yet."

  "You've got time. We're only juniors."

  "Yeah." I'm seventeen in a month. Seventeen, and I've already killed someone. Seventeen, and I've already been tortured. Seventeen, and I'm sitting on a library floor during a bomb threat that might be about me, talking to a girl whose name I learned five minutes ago about a future I'm not sure I'll have. "Yeah, I've got time."

  My phone buzzes.

  Mom: Oh my god are you okay??? We just saw the news. Your father is calling the school.

  I type back: I'm FINE. Really. Just sitting in the library waiting for the all-clear. Don't let Dad yell at anyone.

  Mom: Too late. He's already on the phone.

  I almost smile at that. Dad, mild-mannered city planner Ben Small, yelling at some poor school administrator because his daughter is in a lockdown. It's such a normal parent thing to do. It's such a normal thing to have.

  "Good news?" Destiny asks.

  "My dad's yelling at the school office."

  "Classic dad move."

  "Yeah."

  Another silence. But this one feels different - less awkward, more companionable. Like we're just two people sitting together waiting for something to end.

  "I always thought you were kind of scary," Destiny says after a while. "No offense."

  "None taken."

  "But you're not, really. You're just..." She searches for the word. "Intense. There's a difference."

  "Is there?"

  "Scary means you want to hurt people. Intense means you've got too much going on inside and it leaks out." She shrugs. "My brother's intense too. It's a vibe."

  I don't know what to say to that. No one's ever described me that way before - or if they have, I wasn't listening. Intense. Too much going on inside. That's... not wrong.

  "Thanks," I say. "I think."

  "You're welcome. I think."

  By the time everyone's finished, and nobody is afraid, and the bomb squad has swept through, I've memorized five more names. Destiny, another Samantha, Juni, a third Alex, James, and Caleb. Six total.

  The alarm starts cycling again - All clear. Please proceed to your homeroom for further instructions. All clear. - and the room exhales. People start getting up, gathering their things, moving toward the door. Mrs. Doyle is saying something about staying calm and orderly but no one's really listening.

  I stand up. My legs are stiff from sitting on the cold floor for - I check my phone - almost two hours. It's 1:38 PM. The bomb squad must have cleared the building.

  "Hey," Destiny says, standing up beside me. "This was weird, but... nice talking to you, I guess?"

  "Yeah," I say. "You too."

  "Maybe I'll see you around. When we're not, you know, hiding from bombs."

  "Maybe."

  She heads for the door with the rest of the crowd. I hang back, checking my phone, seeing what I missed. School dismissing early, probably.

  The group chat has exploded. Not the family chat - the Auditors chat.

  Tasha: something's happening at the community center

  Maggie: what kind of something

  Tasha: idk, Mrs. Patterson just called me, she sounds freaked out

  Lily: I'm heading there now i don't have classes for a while

  Tasha: Sam is your school out yet

  Tasha: Sam?

  Then, a picture. I open it up while trying to squeeze out through the enormous mass of students crushing me on all sides, trying to get to homeroom.

  Sam: OMW ASAP